


Dr. Who and the Time Cat

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Comedy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3654759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an intruder on the TARDIS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dr. Who and the Time Cat

**Author's Note:**

> For antennapedia, who prompted: Twelve is puzzled by the TARDIS cat, but they eventually come to some kind of accommodation.

A matter of utmost importance, the Doctor says. The security of the TARDIS has been compromised, he says. There’s an alien on my head, he yells, in one voicemail that Clara will never, ever delete. The unread messages are piling up.

_I’m at work,_ she texts surreptitiously from behind her desk. _Where are you?_

_In your clothes_ , he texts back.

She squeaks, pats herself down frantically. Then coughs theatrically, when she gets looks from the students. “Allergies, don’t mind me. Back to the test. And don’t think I don’t see you, Andrew. Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, okay?” She folds her arms nonchalantly. It feels like there’s something in her shoe. That thing is probably a tiny TARDIS. A tiny TARDIS in her shoe. She sweats, but keeps smiling blankly until everyone’s gaze is turned back towards their desks.

_*Closet,_ the Doctor amends a few seconds later. Flame emoji, high-heels emoji, see-no-evil-monkey emoji. She thinks maybe he doesn’t entirely understand how emojii work. _Classroom cloudy._

"Cell phones aren’t allowed in the classroom, miss," someone pipes up from the back row.

"Shush. It’s - it’s my doctor, for the allergies. You have ten minutes left, you wanna spend it having this conversation?"

_*Closet_ , he sends again. _Not claps._ Unhappy face, slice of cake, turtle.

She sighs. There’s a brief respite, then her phone is vibrating again. _*Croissant, sorry, autohypnosis. autOCORRECT SORRY I MEANT CORRECT._ Flame emoji, flame emoji, turtle. She considers throwing the phone out the window. She considers throwing the phone through the TARDIS window. Instead she sits, and she waits, and when the inevitable _not croissant although there’s a thought do you have pastries @ the daycare_ comes, she ignores it.

After what feels like years, the students are finally shuffling out like they’re trudging through molasses, and depositing their essays on her desk. “Good job, probably, see you tomorrow, no homework, out you go, buh-bye,” she chirps as she pushes the last of them out.

Her phone is vibrating again. Wait, no, phantom-vibrate. The last message was five minutes ago - is he okay? Has he been captured? Injured? Killed, God forbid? Her head swims with a thousand awful possibilities. “Stop worrying. Everything is fine. You got this, Oswald,” she mutters, and opens the closet door.

She walks into the TARDIS with mace in her hand, expecting carnage or a hostage situation or The End Of The World, Again. Instead, she finds - nothing. An empty console room, silent aside from the usual beeps and sighs.

She braces herself and edges in cautiously. “Whoever you are, I’m armed and I’m dangerous.”

"Clara!" The Doctor pokes his head out from the shadows. "Keep your voice down. And don’t move. Don’t be scared, it can sense fear. Don’t - don’t do anything. Act normal."

"If I’m acting normal I’m gonna - nevermind." The hairs on her arms are standing on end. Fight or flight. She intends to fight.

There’s a flash of movement, in the corner of her eye. She whirls around, brandishing the mace like it’s a laser gun. “Come out where I can see you, coward.”

Slowly, very slowly, something small emerges from underneath the stairs. Something small and furry, with glowing eyes. Something - purring.

Clara lowers the mace and smiles patiently. “It’s a cat. You know what cats are.”

"I’m not stupid," he stage-whispers. "Yes, I do know what cats are, thank you for the reminder. That-" pointing angrily at the thing chewing curiously on the telepathic interface - "Is not a cat."

"It’s a cat. You’re just a little kitty, aren’t you? Yes you are." Clara scritches the cat’s head, and it breaks off from licking crumbs from in between buttons to rub against her hand. "You’re a lovely kitty who accidentally wound up in the ship of a sad, frightened old man. I know the feeling. It’s okay, sweetie. You got a name?" No tag, no collar. He looks like a Stanley, all tabby cats look like a Stanley, but she figures she should give the Doctor naming rights, considering the cat was on his property. Even if he was currently hiding behind a bookshelf.

"Don’t condescend," the Doctor says. "Don’t insult it. Never underestimate your enemy, Clara."

"It’s not my enemy. How could anything this adorable be my enemy?"

The cat yowls, like it’s offended she isn’t taking him seriously as a threat, and pops out of existence.

"Oh," Clara says. "I’m not an expert, but that doesn’t seem like that’s something a cat should do."

"I told you. Now. Research time, Miss Oswald." The Doctor bounds down the steps, dumps a pile of books in her arms. "Look for shapeshifters, pet revolutions, feline crime syndicates. I’ll start working on a way to capture it. The next time that thing appears, we’ll be ready."

Apart from the vanishing, it had seemed like a perfectly normal cat, but she shrugs and settles down cross-legged on the floor. First book propped open in her lap ( _A History of Domesticated Animals: 3020-3025_ ), she starts reading.

A half-hour later, the cat pops back into existence. “Meow,” it says, with an air of great disgruntlement, and starts cleaning itself. It’s hovering about three feet off the ground.

"Time cat," she calls out. "Doctor. Time cat." She’s a little bit frantic. It’s not that she’s scared of the time cat, future-cat, floating-and-licking-its-arsehole-cat, only she feels like it’s important that this particular anomaly be taken care of. She clambers up to her feet, _Furpocalypse: A Memoir_ summarily abandoned.

The Doctor, armed with a cardboard box and something moderately resembling a Hoover, stumbles over. Leaking wires and washers as he goes, eyebrows poised, throat cleared for a dramatic speech.

"Rule number 15," he shouts into the swirling vortex now emanating from the creature. "No freeloaders on the TARDIS." He pushes a series of buttons on the Hoover-thing and triumphantly waves one of the attached tubes in the air, bringing it down in line with the cat in a dramatic flourish.

Books are knocked off shelves, spare change she didn’t know she had is whipped out of her pocket, her hair is blown into her eyes and her mouth. A staggering, unworldly wind. She keeps her hands pressed down by her sides, wary of a potential Marilyn Monroe moment.

There’s a howling noise, and then - nothing. The books drop down to the floor, pages fluttering. She unclutches the hem of her skirt, and looks around. “Did you get it?” she asks.

"Not even a little bit," he admits.

With a whistling, rustling sound, the cat comes back. It floats down to rest on the Doctor’s shoulders, curling contentedly around his neck. He tenses and glares at it, then at her, then back at it.

"I’ve always wanted a cat," Clara says.

"Congratulations," he replies faintly, in a pale imitation of his usual sarcastic bite, but lets the cat stay. 

 

 

The cat is not of extra-terrestrial origin. The cat is not a bomb, or a robot, or a remote-controlled surveillance unit. The cat is sometimes two cats, and the cat is sometimes bright blue, and the cat is usually floating. These are the facts they have about the cat.

No pet is perfect, she figures. So what if it doesn’t always exist in Euclidean space.

The Doctor names the cat Epsilon. Or rather, he declares that the cat’s name is Epsilon, Epsilon told him so, he speaks cat, did she know that he speaks cat? Fluent in five dialects. She’s almost certain that he’s lying, but it’s hard to be sure about anything when it comes to the Doctor. She doesn’t press the issue.

She also doesn’t press the issue when he explains that the ‘no freeloaders’ rule doesn’t apply, since Epsilon is helping out with the pig-rat situation in the TARDIS storage bay. Or when he insists he doesn’t actually care, it’s just that petting has been scientifically proven to improve morale.

She does take a picture of them cuddling together on the armchair, though, for future blackmail purposes.

 

 

_Bored,_ she texts. The meeting’s been going on for ages. One actual bulletpoint of information about updated curriculum guidelines couched in acres of PowerPoint. Her brain is leaking out of her ears. _Adventure?_

_Can’t. Cat on lap._ Five minutes later: _I just remembered I have a time machine. Be there soonish maybe._ Flame emoji, birthday cake, football, thumbs-up.

She sighs heavily. The PowerPoint is still going strong, twenty slides in. Her cellphone vibrates periodically; she contemplates flinging it at the Doctor’s head when he finally does show up.

Pick up a bag of litter, he says. Go buy some cat food, he says. Not the wet kind, the dry stuff, don’t want to spoil Epsilon. Buy a laser pointer. Buy two laser pointers. Buy a bulk pack of laser pointers, he says, and a croissant, I’m still in the mood for a croissant.

_Time and also space machine_ , she reminds him, swiping blindly under the table. _You can run your own errands._

He responds almost instantly with a seven-second video clip of Epsilon sneezing and rupturing a hole in the fabric of reality. That’s it, she decides. Cell phone privileges revoked.


End file.
